Interview with Don and Pauline Fillmore

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Interview with Don and Pauline Fillmore

The following is an excerpt from an interview with Don Fillmore and his wife, Pauline:

They say one of the most difficult things in that era was the prejudice against conscientious objectors. Can you tell us some of your experience from that?

D: When I graduated from high school, well a year or two after I graduated, I went back to the graduation, and they had on the back page of the graduation folder, had several names of so- and-so is in the Army, so- and- so is in the Navy, and so on, in the Marines, etc. And then at the very bottom it said Donald Fillmore is awaiting induction, not induction,awaiting…concentration camp! Into a concentration camp.

P: I had two teachers in the same high school where he attended, would ask me about, oh, the favorite nicknames were the yellow - belly guy, and that kind of thing. It was pretty hard.

--Taken from Siuslaw National Forest and Portland State University History Department. "Camp 56: An Oral History Project." Pp 60-3.